Korax’ Heritage: Scattered Evil News

The latest beta release of Scattered Evil is available here. For more information on how to play, see this page. Please report any bugs you find to our Bug Tracker.

This is the last beta before the final release, which is planned for the second half of next week. The following new additions need to be primarily tested for issues:

The quest tracking system has been redesigned and now journal entries and NPC conversations can interact more closely with the quest progress and the game world. Especially in the case of more complicated quests, the quest journal entry now updates more frequenty, providing you with more information on where you are supposed to go and what you are supposed to do.
Every quest has been completely rewritten, so new bugs might have been introduced.

Quest areas are now gated: Until you pick up a quest from the NPC, you are physically unable to access parts or all of a quest location.

Weapon and spell journal entries will now offer a series of updated hints as you progress through the requisites, all the way up the point when you learn the spell or pick up the weapon.

As the first dungeon to get the weapon for slot #3 (first ranged weapon for fighter and cleric) was still too difficult, this introductory quest now only needs the player to kill a half dozen ettins in the greatly extended cave of the starting forest map. Finishing this quest unlocks Darkbough, the previous starting dungeon.

Order services once again changed, now they provide their benefit to any player class, but only once.

Blacksmiths now have a limited supply of armor pieces or armor sets, depending on the shop. Once you deplete the supply, you can’t armor up further.

Sounds have been added to NPC conversations, currently a smallish mix of generic male and female voices and three different sounds to signalize whether the player pays money to an NPC, sells an item to an NPC, or receives a large bag of gold as reward. There is also a new menu option to turn these conversation sounds on or off.
As a technical necessity for this new feature, menu sounds have been disabled. Let us know whether you prefer us to try and add menu sounds back in for the actual menus.

This uncut video shows the first few minutes of starting a new game with the cleric, available now on YouTube. Comparing it to the original “Starting out” video, the improvements made in the last 3 months should be quickly apparent.

Spent the last few weeks ripping apart the old quest system and replacing it from scratch with a more malleable one. This is demonstrated in the video below (or watch it on YouTube), showing how the journal entry changes along with the quest progress, always letting the player know what the next step is. The new system also allows NPCs to react differently depending on the quest stage the player is on, this can be observed by what the mine guards say before and after the player frees the miners.

The latest beta release of Scattered Evil is available here. For more information on how to play, see this page. Please report any bugs you find to our Bug Tracker.

This update fixes numerous bugs, including the most frequent crashes. It also adds a new feature: selling items to merchants (currently the two largest coastal warehouses, Macy’s in Joral and The Merchant Lodge in Neusus). In addition, the first dungeon (Darkbough) has been tuned to be less daunting, let us know if it’s still too difficult.

The latest beta release of Scattered Evil is available here. For more information on how to play, see this page.

The game is now feature complete, but includes several game-crashing bugs. Make sure to save often and please report any bugs you find to our Bug Tracker.

This update includes the following highlights:

Weapons, offensive spells and auxiliary spells for all classes: from Inferno Smash through Armageddon to Tears of the Gods, there is something highly destructive available for everyone.

Gold currency: now you can collect valuables in dungeons or earn money by completing tasks and thus increase the amount of gold coins you have in your possession. Spend it on a wide variety of items and services.

NPC conversations are now class aware: quest rewards may vary depending on the class you play and orders now offer their specific free services (healing, armor repair, mana replenishment) only to fellow order members. Even many ordinary NPCs will react to you differently depending on whether you are a “meathead”, a “prude” or a “pervert”.

Custom high-detail portraits for important NPCs: instead of just standing there looking blurry, some of those annoying denizens of Charybdea will now get in your face in glorious detail.

Artifact changes: stack sizes for some inventory items now significantly higher or lower than in Hexen. Flechettes now work as grenades for all classes. Torches last for a few seconds only.